Witness the process of death...

A bunch of us "jukai(formal precept taking ceremoney in Zen) brothers and sisters", went to visit one of our brothers, who is very sick. He has a terminal illness and might not live long. We sat zazen with him and chanted heart sutra. He is not able to talk any more but he was talking with his eyes. I have never been in presence of a terminally sick person before. It was a first one for me and brought out lot of emotions. I really admired his presence, his strength and his acceptance. There he was - trying to be present in every moment, trying to just be and he was doing it beautifully. It made me wonder how would I behave in face of such a situation. However much we might study or practice, I don't know if any thing can really prepare us for our own death. From my little life experience, even after sitting for so long, as soon as there is a threat to "my self", my defenses go up. Sometimes I am aware enough to see the process and let the defense drop but more often, I fight. Habit energy is there and it is there strong. Well, I should be thankful that I can witness the process some times at least, if not all times..:).

Just being

Once again, I am at a point in my practice where I am finding something unusual..so, I figured the more you practice, the more peaceful, patient, nice, kind etc etc you become. And now I am realizing that acceptance is another aspect of practice. I don't constantly have to be in mode of changing myself to become something else. I am good as is and it is a matter of acceptance. Changes will come as and when needed, but in the meanwhile I don't need to worry. Just be. I always used to wonder what just being is and it is making sense now..:)

Must practice!!!

Long time, no post! Lots of things were happening and did not have a chance to come to blog site. Actually, did not sit on the cushion much either and saw a clear affect on mental state because of that. Well, at least that made it clear that sitting is important, very important, even if just for 10 minutes a day! I guess I needed to learn that. That is all I want to say today that I have come to know that continuity is important and if I think I can do it every now and then, it doesn't cut it! I had started to lose my fundamentals, mind was getting delusioned more and more and as a result stress just spirals upwards. It was a great learning experience to see how mind plays games if I slack in my practice. With deep bows to Universe.

Balance the equation?

So, this non-dual vs dual nature of universe has been on my mind lately. The more I look, the more I find good and bad together. Seems like there is a design for some of us to do bad, so that others have a chance to do good. Those who are doing "bad", firmly believe that what they are doing is right, which means from their perspective, they are doing good. It is very clear to me know that there is no definition of good or bad. It is a matter of perception, depends on where you are standing and what your circumstances are. And yes, it applies to every thing.

Well, on top of this, I ended up watching the last two movies in Matrix trilogy. It was not a planned activity but happened because I am on vacation and can afford to watch TV late into the night. I think the person who wrote matrix is enlightened. I don't know how they know so much but boy, they do have some facts straight at least. So, the one that resonated most with me was the unbalanced vs balanced equation. The things that were bothering me for some time are --

1. Why is there good and bad?
2. People who do bad are convinced that what they are doing is not bad, so in their mind, they are doing right.
3. There is no self, so there is no entity making up its mind about good or bad.

The statement in matrix was that there are some of us unbalancing equation and others are balancing. If this was not happening, probably no one would have anything to do! And my finding is that every one is balancing and unbalancing the equation. We all are a mix of good and evil, some less, some more.